


Ignition

by Wecanhaveallthree



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 15:17:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21255455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wecanhaveallthree/pseuds/Wecanhaveallthree
Summary: A new-made Custodian enters the crucible.





	Ignition

**IGNITION**

* * *

This is a place of swallowed sparks. This is a place where light is an invader, an intruder born briefly to life with the blow of hammer on metal, lingering as golden afterimages even after fading back into the void. This is a place of breath bated in the silence between strikes: when we wait for the light to appear again. When we dread that it will not.

He steps in metronome rhythm to the beat of the great forge’s heart. This is not the hallowed sanctum of a Mechanicus chapel, full of whistling bellows and endless binary prayers. There is nothing unintended or out of place here. Everything proceeds as the great engineer foresaw.

Except him.

The runt.

Does he bear the imposing stature of his fellows? No, he could never have that towering presence, though still he would overtop most humans with ease. Nor does he have that distinct aura, that flavour of existence that defines those of his kind, that sets them apart from all others even amongst hallowed, beloved servants.

Where his fellows would intrude upon the forge’s pattern, would make themselves the focus of it, would bring the music of steel into their own golden symphony, instead he winds a delicate diminuendo. He glides beyond the melody on silent wings.

A lesser predator must learn patience.

A feeder on carrion must scavenge where others simply take.

He notes the age of the equipment he steps by lightly with an eye that still looks at new things with wonder, that collects and collates them in the irreducible library of memory. The dusty patina of long-unused tools of metallurgy and smithcraft: once, this hall would have been a true concert of creation, each master at their bellows conducting some wonderful device for the betterment of mankind.

Thunderbolts mark their abandoned stations. They were the first craftsman of Unity. On their shoulders, by their hands, the aquila was brought to life. Ten thousand years and long disuse have not dulled the pride of this place. Were it needed -- or, rather, was it permitted -- once again the truly skilled would be offered a place in the Terrawatt Clan’s rolls of honour.

Once again would the Urals sing with the swing of hammers, the work-songs and iron-ballads, the heave-and-ho of progress.

Now they are only home to a weary soloist, played out past her prime.

Her song is a lonely hymn of maintenance only. The pursuit of what-we-have, rather than what-could-be. Her tools are borne out of duty, out of grim service rather than the furnace-hot passion of her forebears.

As the intruder steps closer, his silence a passing duet, he makes out the finest details of the forge’s lonely conductor. The augmented braces about her arms that give her the strength she once had by life alone; the kaleidoscope of lenses that flit across her milky, cataracted eyes like the wings of a poison-moth where once she could judge temper and temperature by sight alone.

She is bent, embittered steel -- and still, she plays the song of iron. And now, closer, he can hear the note, the unspoken question in her hammer-speech: _how much longer?_

Only in death does duty end. And for some -- one cannot pretend otherwise in the psychic shadow of the Golden Throne -- not even then.

‘Well well,’ she speaks, not looking up from her work, her voice holding all the warmth of a quenching barrel, ‘The little owl.’

He does not reply. He has learned well not to answer back to those more powerful than he. Silence is the runt’s chipped dagger, his blade-in-the-back. Silence is a void for others to fill, to give of themselves, to overstep what they intend. His appetite for the red meat of secrets is insatiable. The hunger of one who never knows when the next opportunity to eat will arise.

The forge-mistresses grunts, impatient, though her hammers retain their rhythm. ‘I thought the guardians would end you, runt.’

They almost had, though he will not admit it. Abominable battle-constructs that shared a short-distance neural link, that adapted and _learned_ as they had swung their fibre-bundle flails at him in the cramped, worn bedrock chambers of the undervault. No trick worked twice against them, and their cunning was utterly vicious, often putting the twin battle automaton in harm’s way to pin the runt down to one position or another.

He had turned that tiny fragment of knowledge against them. Two beings, halved, eternally separated, who could only find union in combat -- how could they not grow to hate, as only the truly sentient can?

The little owl had left the creatures dismantling each other, slowly, piece by tender piece.

‘They were quick,’ he spoke at last. ‘I was quicker.’

‘Smarter,’ chided the forge-mistress. ‘You were smarter, and that counts far more. I would not have allowed you entry to our hall otherwise.’

‘Allowed?’

‘Have I pricked your pride?’

He blinked, slowly. Owlishly.

The forge-mistress laughed like the misfiring of a battle tank, all exhaust and fumes and ominous rumbling. The hammers stopped their ceaseless pounding and fell to her sides, and the hall darkened to nothingness. Only her kaleidoscope eyes shone, two dying embers in a cold burn pit. The two stood beneath the mountains, hidden from each other, intimate as lovers - or murderers.

‘Has He forgotten us?’ she asked, her voice made tiny by the enormity of her question. ‘Are His eyes so far from Terra, so focused on the struggles beyond that He has nothing to spare for his most loyal?’

Silence answered. It stretched out forever in the dark, timeless void. They fell into that tangled place of doubt and unknowing together. The cripple. The runt. Two broken toys in an abandoned chest. Outgrown and unloved.

Asking for so little. A word. A sign. A voice.

A voice.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘He has not forgotten us,’ the owl spoke into the silence himself, knowing it was bottomless, knowing that he could not bridge the vast gulf. ‘He trusts us more than any other. Whether there is some plan beyond ken, or knowing beyond ours, or simply that we do what we can -- He has not forgotten us. When others fail or fall, they are mourned but not unexpected. He knows that we will not fail Him while He strives beyond the Throneworld. It is our charge, and ours alone, to guard His legacy. To keep the flame alive, and keep the wolves from the door.’

A deep, rumbling chuckle. ‘To keep the forge lit, you mean.’

Words cut by an unseen smile. ‘Perhaps.’

‘You have a way with words, Custodian.’

‘We are expected to master all weapons, clan-keeper.’

The light returned. Not with the violence of metal meeting metal. Not with the echo of human history, of bronze and steel and hybrid fibre and ceramic plate and adamantium, but of something that was all and none. Something that was a part, and set apart.

It came with the noble gold of auramite.

It shone like a warden’s lantern in a dark forest, keeping the monsters at bay. It shone like a lighthouse on a stony shore, calling all ships to safe harbour. It shone with the ruddy gleam of hearthfire, of home. It shone with an ancient promise made by a lightning lord to the species he had sworn to lead and protect.

And as the forge-mistress bore the breastplate, the final finished work from its cooling cradle, she sang.

She sang old songs with names who were forgotten along with the language made to speak them. She sang war-songs that tattooed warriors bellowed in their longboats on stormy seas. Her throat ran raw with ballads of loss, of return, of holed helms on grassy hills. Her eyes ran with tears as her voice soared to declaim on the realms of heroes and legends, of guardians and protectors.

Each piece of the auramite battleplate came with a song that was also a story. Each came with a blessing, or benediction, or exultation. Each was asked to protect its bearer, to serve loyally and faithfully, to give its life if needed for the whole. Each bore the fine tracery of wards against evil, against corruption, against bane.

The forge-mistress laid each tenderly upon the arming bench at her feet.

Her blind eyes, unmasked by the false-glass, met his.

‘Your first name,’ she rasped, tapping the breastplate. ‘Over your heart, for your heart is your greatest strength, little owl. Guard it as you would guard Him.’

He dressed in silence, fitting each plate to his body as if it had been wrought from a perfect mould. The dimensions were perfect, even for his stunted form. Each brace tightened to its limit and no further; each guard mated perfectly with its brother-and-sister links. The armour welcomed him joyously, as one who finds their true purpose, their soul-bond, their faith rewarded. Even newborn, the armour had awaited his coming. No other would be permitted it while he lived and served: it was locked to his very genes, the unique coding of his body.

One thing remained.

The forge-mistress bore it to him personally, her head bowed in reverence, the frames bolted to her shrunken body whirring as they walked her forward.

Auramite plate was glory incarnate. But the Guardian Spear of the Custodian Guard was their true symbol of office, their rod and sceptre, their might and authority. Perhaps one of the Companions would shed their golden plate and don a blackened cape or image-masking device, perhaps they would obscure their true identity -- but never in life would they relinquish their guardian weaponry.

Their blades defended the Emperor Himself. They never tired, they never wavered. They were vigilance eternal.

When the little owl placed his gauntleted hand upon the weapon, he felt it shiver, felt it taste his fundamental nature and bond to it. Like the armour, no creature could wield a Custodian’s spear as anything more than a blunt instrument. Only the chosen wielder could activate the great sweep of the power blade, could fire the twin-linked thunderbolt-marked bolt caster that counterbalanced the spearhead.

Man, armour and spear formed an unassailable trinity of battle.

For the first time, the little owl felt a sense of rightness. The awkwardness of initiation, of gene-therapy, the shunning of others, the fearsome trials that none had expected him to pass -- and here he stood, clad in gold with the first and most vital of names newly etched on the inside of his plate. Now he could stand with his brothers, now he could earn glory and renown and acceptance and--

No. He would never be what they had made him for.

He would never meet the impossible expectations. That vision of service was a false one. There were a thousand other ways, a thousand paths to walk, but they all started here.

They started with the simplest of gestures.

Gently, he reached out to the forge-mistress. The songs and ceremony had drained the last vitality from her: now, she had fallen in on herself like a collapsing castle, the illusion of strength gone. A masterwork created. And who would blame her for averting her eyes from her creation, now? Soon it would be gone. Her very soul went into these unique creations. Each left her a little less, never to return. Never to return. Never--

The little owl’s golden wing brushed the tears from her wizened cheek.

‘He has not forgotten you,’ he said. ‘Neither shall I.’

A face upturned, now. The fluttering of - what? Hope? The stirring of ashes in a faded kiln? No. Hope requires more than this. Promises are brittle, all too easy to break--

‘I know few songs, but I would learn.’

Ah, there.

Ignition.

Joy.


End file.
